Snow Survial Course

Hey all, Sorry for not posting for the past week...but this post will make up for it. So, it is a requirement for all personnel who are working down here at McMurdo to go through a 2-day crash course in snow survival. As you can imagine, this is very serious because of the storms that sometimes roll through here. The course is referred to as "Snowcraft I" or "Happy-Camper", but I like to make it sound more hardcore...so Snow Survival School is how I think of it. Every Department usually tries to send new employees as soon as they can to this snow school, but the due to the busy schedule of the Fire Dept, I had to go rather late in the season. But, it did work out in my favor, instead of just one other firefighter in my group, I had five. Which was a lot more fun, and I will get into that later.
So in order to participate in this class, one must gear up in all issued ECW gear. I brought my extra gear as well as my issued bunny boots and big red jacket, always be prepared right? We started the morning of the class doing the ice breaker/get to know your group activity. Ice breakers are my personal least favorite thing to do, maybe because I had way to many at FPC. But shortly after our ice breakers, we got to go into some basic winter survival skills. Everyone, who leaves from the township of McMurdo is issued a "survival bag". The survival bag is built for two people, but can be altered. The basic contents of the bag are: 1 whisperlight international stove, 1 canister of fuel, 2 sleeping bags (0 degree or lower rated), 2 sleeping mats, 1 tent, 1 tarp, a couple days of food, a snow saw and a shovel. Of course there are some variations of the bags depending on where you are going and how many are in your party. After going over the survival bag, we went over cold injuries which is a major issue down here. There have already been a couple cases of hypothermia as you can imagine. An interesting side fact is that everyone down here has a slightly lower core temperature than you guys up there, in America/the real world. After a couple power-points in the class, we then gathered up all of our clothing and loaded everything into a delta so that we could head out to our camping spot/outdoor classroom.

The place where we are going to be doing the camping/outdoor portion of the class is near Willy Field. It is on the ice shelf, a little bit past the Kiwi base and the pressure ridges. It has a great view of Mt. Erebus. They refer to this place it as "snow city". The kiwi's have their own course as well, but it is roughly 2 miles or so away from the US area. We wouldn't want them stealing our super secret survival skills, would we? Or maybe it is the other way around, let that marinate for a second. The instructor brought us to the "I-Hut", which stands for information hut....ooohhh so exciting. That is the blue structure you see here, that the instructor sleeps in/hosts the class in. The instructor showed up how to use a whisperlight international stove, which is one of the most essential tools one could have on this harsh continent. I don't mean to brag or anything; but I've used one of these bad boys before. Shout out to Troop 1 Dover, Greggy Smalls and all the other Eagle Scouts I know!
What is really cool about the Whisperlight, is that they run on any kind of fuel, which makes them really useful down here. Literally any kind of fuel so, diesel, JP-8, mogas, kerosene, white gas and the list goes on. It is fairly easy to use the stove, thank god I used it all the time in scouting. After that portion of the class we got our sleeping gear issued at the warming hut, a small trailer that is fairly well heated and filled with sleeping supplies and other materials. The next portion of the class brought us to the actual camp ground, roughly a little less than 1/4 of a mile away from the I-Hut.
We were then issued shovels, saws, tents, sleds, fuel, stoves and of course a first aid kit. The best part about going with 4 other firefighters was that we basically ran the show. Our backgrounds made us the best candidates for this mock survival situation. We then were given instructions to set up a couple scott tents and a couple mountaineering tents. It was very easy to set up the tents, though I did learn a neat new trick about setting up anchors for the tents. The winds down here as you can imagine can get very strong. There was once an instance where a small group of people had their snow mobiles thrown from their campsite because of high winds, to give you a small picture of this wild continent we have here.
After throwing a couple of tents up, we then learned to make snow shelters. The most common snow shelters to make are the Quinzy and the snow trench. The snow trench is often nicknamed, "the snow grave", because it essentially is a hole dug like a gave and then you put a roof of snow bricks above it and seal yourself in for the night. A common variation of the snow trench is the exclamation point version, in which one makes another hole and a tunnel to join the snow trench to the hole. Look at the exclamation point key on your computer and that is what you make essentially, hence the name! With this attribute, one can completely seal the snow trench and still go in and out of the shelter without climbing through the roof. Though my favorite shelter is the "Quinzy". It is basically an igloo, if you want to call it that. The way to make that shelter is to take all your bags/luggage and bury them under a pile of snow. Let the snow sit for a couple hours then dig a hole through the side and pull the bags out. Then a little bit away from the shelter, make a hole and a tunnel. Tunnel into your dome from bellow and, seal the side hole and then you have your own private quinzy! The reason why you have a hole and a tunnel is because; if the entrance is lower than where you are sleeping, you're heat won't escape that easy...since heat rises. KNOWLEDGE!!!!
The quinzy that you see here was not built by me or my group. It was built by the last group. Our group was only 10 people, which is half the size of the normal class. With a class of 20, you have more hands to help build the shelter, so our class skipped that activity. Instead we did a couple other activities. We built a wall for the tents, to protect them from wind. Making snow blocks was wicked fun. And surprisingly easy, I can explain the process to anyone who wants later.


After we made our wall, our instructor showed us how to set up our kitchen. As you can see its not a bad set up. Our instructor left to sleep in his I-Hut, after the kitchen demo.

With the instructor away for the evening we were essentially on our own. The other guys from the fire dept. and I made a snow table for our feast of our dehydrated food. The Fire Department also cooked the food too. I told you we represented at the "Happy Camper". The food wasn't too bad, surprisingly. I don't know if that means I've lowered my standards or if McMurdo food is getting to me. But in either case, it was nice to have a good meal. Here is a shot of the view from our table. I believe it is one of the best seats I've ever had.

I decided to sleep in the Quinzy rather than in our small tent collection. I figure, how many people can say that they slept in a Quinzy on the Ross Ice Shelf? The space within the quinzy was small, but this works towards ones advantage. This is because that the body heat is basically trapped inside the structure and helps warm it. As you can see in this photo, I was sleeping essentially next to the celling. Don't worry this structure was very much solid and strong. The next day my buddy Ben and I jumped ontop of it several times...it didn't move at all. The Quinzy was an interesting experience, I won't say my sleep was restful, but I survived. Which is really what the course is all about, survival. I will admit that I usually do not like winter camping, but this was one of my best winter camping trips I had ever been on.

Day Two of the Survival course was not as exciting as Day One. But it was very interesting at some points. One of the low points was the "How to use a Radio" class. As someone who has used a portable radio for about 3 years, I think the class was a total waste of time and could have been shortened greatly. The next part of the radio class was on HV radios. Think of a radio from late 1960's to early 1970's. That is essentially the technology that we are working with. One must set up the antenna array in the general direction of who they want to contact. The goal of this exercise was to call the South Pole and ask them a question. It was fun to use this somewhat old technology and talk 800 miles away with somewhat crystal clear reception. Base camps and other groups use these radio's and statelite phones as the communication devices to contact MAC-Ops. MAC-Ops, "The Voice of Antarctica" is the dispatch center that is run at McMurdo. MAC-Ops runs all the US research facilities communications both within and outside the continent. They also help the other research facilities talk to each other. So understanding in how to use this radio is paramount. This photo, is me pretending to call in an air-strike to Scott Base...sorry my Kiwi friends but, you have fallen victim to my massive imagination. Sucka!

After the fun radio time. Our instructor had us do a "White Out Drill". This drill is wicked fun. The drill usually has one victim, but in this case we had two. The senario is that the victims were trapped within the I-hut and had to go to the bathroom. The first victim left, was gone for one hour, so the other victim went out to find him. The current weather conditions for the drill were typical of a "condition 1" storm. Firefighters traditionally rock in this drill, because we have the most training for searching area's with limited visibility. They had us wear white buckets over our heads. Usually most groups can't find the victims that efficiently or at all. But, we were able to find both victims fairly quickly. After that we cleaned up the I-hut and went back to the classroom at McMurdo to do another couple powerpoints/videos on some more Antarctic environment. All and all it was a wicked fun experience. If anyone needs me to make them a quinzy, I got the training now, hollah! Take care everyone.

And of course here are some random Photos: FF Skyler calling South Pole and asking them what they had for dinner last night. A Scott tent and a couple mountaineering tents.